Fine
by WhoJackman
Summary: An emotional blow rocks Julie and an unlikely ally shows his face. Diverges from events of Season 4, what might have happened after Season 3. No spoilers.


_I am not planning on returning to FNL fanficing...though I am throwing around something at the moment. The reason being that I have been working on my own novel and am struggling at the 50k mark. I just happened to find this file that I'd written months ago (before the current season). It's a short fic but I hope you like it _

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It hurt, it hurt really bad. Deep down in her heart and outward from her chest cavity, it surged with every beat of her pulse. For every second of dull pain, there was a following second of sharper pain that tensed her whole body making it impossible to not think about him.

Julie sat with her shoulders hunch, elbows locked into her knees, hair flowing all abound her like a self-contained tent. She chuckled but it lacked the necessary humour to sound light. She would look peculiar from the outside. She knew it was a possibility, she'd even broached it with him at Mindy's wedding but he'd been so sure that they should stay together, weather the long distance that she'd pushed all her fears aside. She shouldn't have. Matt's tertiary career had done just what she'd expected; it had split them into two difference existences. They still loved each other, that he still loved her should provide some comfort but it just made the sting all the more brutal. They just had different lives now and they could no longer pretend that their relationship wasn't hanging by a thread. You can't keep the passion alive when phone calls are difficult to coordinate, especially when your father is in the same room. Her cell should have made it easier but it didn't. The determination to make it work dissolved. Matt's regretful admission that he might have been too hasty earlier in the year cut deeply but she accepted it with resignation. She wished she weren't sitting in the school cafeteria while he told her. Landry looked at her questioningly as her face fell but she rushed off before she told him. In her senior year at school, Landry Clarke was her only friend, Lois deserting her a long time back.

Julie had suffered though the periods after lunch glaring at the wall clock. She wanted to go home and hibernate in the solitude of her bedroom. And yet here she was, watching her father run the team through drills through the strands of hair. They protected her but obstructed her vision. She was trying really hard not to follow the new #7 with her gaze. He wasn't Matt, she knew he wasn't. After three years it was hard to turn off her instinct to find him on a field of blue and white swathed players. She tossed her hair over the shoulders and choked back a sigh. _Time to grow up_.

The team was looking good this year despite the losses of Matt and Tim last year and Smash the previous year. Good meaning _not championship standard_. Good meaning Dillon residents were going to have a disappointing year. Good was tantamount to failure.

Julie reached to her left to her school bag, slithering a hand amongst her wallet, books, pens, hair-ties to find her sunglasses. She roughly pulled them out, shoved them onto her face and finger combing her hair off her face. Best foot forward, indifference in this case.

The still air of the stadium was interrupted with a stray breeze that rushed though the grounds, whisking her hair along for the ride. Julie flirted with the idea of cutting it all off but dismissed the thought almost immediately knowing it would look exactly like the Matt-rebellion move that everyone would expect. Her lips skewed, she'd look pretty crappy with short hair anyway – kind of like one of her old Cabbage Patch dolls, all cheeks and eyes. She tried to rein her hair back in for the fourth time and felt the bleacher flex under some new weight, a weight that wasn't her own.

Julie's head quickly turned towards the direction of her intruder. He stood on the seat a few rows before her. His brawny arms loosely crossed before him, hair dancing in the wind, a quizzical smile on his face and a teasing look in his eye. She looked away. He'd take the hint and leave. He'd never been all that interested in her in the past, only faked it when he had been living temporarily with her family. She shook her head, that wasn't fair. Tim had genuinely liked being part of the family, had taken on unofficial son and big brother roles. She'd felt guilty that her stupidity had been the contributing factor in his departure and had keenly felt his absence when he'd gone. She'd never had a big brother before and she'd liked having one, he'd looked out for her, caring but not actively intervening unless necessary.

"Hey Tay..." she looked at him abruptly, scrunching her nose at his nickname attempt. He laughed. "Yep, doesn't sound like you. Jules it is."

He sat down with surprisingly grace. The whole seat rocked momentarily at his weight and he ducked as her hair flew around him like blind fireflies. She ducked her head down, refusing to corral her wayward hair.

She heard a quick intake, a splutter and then some choking. A smile quickly rose as she took in manly Tim Riggins badly warding off her hair; instead it was insistent on finding its way into his mouth. It was gross, if she was in his position she'd be shrieking. It was funny though and she couldn't help but chuckle a little.

It took twenty seconds more of his swatting before he took the bull by the horns. He grabbed a handful of airborne hair mashing it up in his fist, clumsily but gently pulling in other strands. He bunched them on the back of her head and haphazardly knotted it.

"Attack of the Hair OVER." He smirked, stretching back against the seat as if nothing had happened. It was only a minute but Julie realised that in that minute she hadn't thought of Matt. Relief swept over her. She'd be okay. Julie and her kamikaze, Riggins attacking hair would be fine.

She turned her head towards the still figure beside her.

"Whatcha doing here?"

"Dodging man hating hair. You?"

"Seriously. I haven't seen you in ages." She raised an eyebrow, pushing him to be honest.

"What's with this?" he gestured to her crazy hair.

"Since when are you one to give hair advice?" she snarked, looking at his own slightly greasy and limp locks. He ignored her.

"I heard about Seven". Julie sucked in a breath. Word had spread pretty quick. Matt didn't have to deal with the gossip that pleasure was for her alone.

"Yeah." Her word hung in the air neither answering nor providing insight into her thoughts. Her brain was in numb mode.

"Yeah. Thought I'd mosey over and tell you that you'd be fine. But then I realised, this is Julie Taylor, of course she'll be fine." She smiled at him. He wasn't smothering her, or bashing Matt, or even prodding for information. It was supportive distance.

"I am fine." And she was telling the truth. She was fine, she'd continue to be fine but now she knew that she had one more person in her corner than she'd thought. Not a typical or expected friend but a valued one. One that knew her enough to know what she needed in this moment. She just hoped she hadn't cause for him to swallow an indigestible amount of hair.

Yeah, Riggins was right. Julie Taylor was fine.

She smiled at him, feeling the knot of hair slither free. He smiled back but grimaced as tendrils of hair started snaking its way towards him again.

"I give up. I surrender." He joked, raising his arms and chortling. Julie wrapped her arm around his platonically and shook her hair towards him, the breeze picked up her cue and attacked.

"Never."


End file.
